


10/10

by Bienmoreau



Series: Signs of Progress [2]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-10
Updated: 2017-10-10
Packaged: 2020-08-20 22:16:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20235253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bienmoreau/pseuds/Bienmoreau
Summary: There are a number of traditions that have been developed over the years for Trojan birthdays and Jeremy Knox’s is no different, he is in fact instrumental in their existence.Jeremy’s birthday feat. newly Trojan Jean for the first time!





	10/10

There are a number of traditions that have been developed over the years for Trojan birthdays and Jeremy Knox’s is no different, he is in fact instrumental in their existence.

Due to its timing he is very rarely able to make it home to his family for the actual day but the team make sure to fill in and make their sunshine leader feel the love. 

The first year Alvarez baked him the cake it did not go well, they were both still very much baby freshmen but in hindsight it really was what cemented their life long friendship. 

Jeremy had not been looking forward to getting up on what he expected to be just another day with the slight tarnish of homesickness ever more acutely felt due to the fact that it would be the first birthday where he didn’t wake up to his mothers breakfast and a table full of happy siblings. The numerous voicemail messages and texts awaiting him from them all unfortunately only making him feel worse as he prepped his morning coffee.

What he hadn’t expected was to be greeted by the one and only Sara Alvarez crashing through his door. She was already in full swing with a raucous rendition of Cumpleaños Feliz! as she swung the huge cake in her hands onto his little dorm table. It was, to put it nicely, a work of modern art, he wasn’t sure what shape it had originally been but it hardly mattered, as soon as the initial shock dissipated the overwhelming realisation of what she had done washed over him. There was nothing in the world that could have stopped his tears as he dove at her wrapping his arms around her waist and squeezing the breath out of her as she reached the end of the song.

Without them even talking about it more than Jeremy telling her in passing how big a deal birthdays were in his family she had taken it upon herself to shower him in love the whole day even getting a large amount of their fellow freshmen on the team involved in the celebrations after practice. Her cake fed them both for the following two days, and while it wasn’t a scratch on his mothers cooking Jeremy would swear on oath that it was the best thing he had eaten since starting at USC.

Of course he repaid Alvarez twice over when her birthday came around.

Their second year was much the same, just with a little more preparation on both sides and Alvarez successfully dragging all the new freshmen in to the party they put together for it. Jeremy didn’t mind in the slightest that it was only maybe 45% about throwing him a big party and more about Sara’s ginormous puppy crush on the teams new goalie. And he really couldn’t mind when the two of them called him over with huge proud smiles and brought out possibly the most elaborately decorated sun shaped cake he could ever imagine.

The skype call he had with his family that evening was loud and busy and perfectly wonderfully normal and he went to bed grinning wide and looking forward to the year ahead of them all.

Being Captain changed a lot of things for Jeremy, but not the important things, not his friendships or the way he felt increasingly like USC was his home away from home and the team his second family. The new intake of freshmen were instantly brought into the fold by their upperclassmen and they were introduced to the Trojan birthday mentality, to Jeremy’s surprise and no small amount of delight the seniors took it all the more seriously now that he had proved himself to them all.

He even overheard a couple of them explaining to the newbies after practice on the 8th “We gotta show the cap a good time so he won’t work us too hard!” 

October 10th of Jeremy’s third year saw the biggest of the team birthday parties since he had started. They all ended up on the beach, music loud, food plentiful, alcohol for those that wanted it and a sun-shaped cake twice the size as the year before.

It wasn’t that Jeremy didn’t miss his family, didn’t miss the way his birthdays had always been growing up, but this; this gathering of his friends, this team-wide celebration was really, if he was being honest, just as good in so many ways.

The celebration traditions only expanded from there. With Laila the duo had become a very strong and influential trio, able to make nearly anything happen. Birthdays on practice days had one set of traditions, birthdays on weekends or rest days another, and those that took place during their holidays had either early or belated celebrations with the team when they best fit the scheduled. Thankfully Alvarez and Laila took charge of this particular part of team organisation so that Jeremy could throw himself into proving that he really did deserve the faith his team had in him and that he could measure up as an even better captain for them for another year.

His birthday couldn’t come soon enough that year. everyone wanted a reason to blow off any residual party energy from the summer before Jeremy and Coach Rheman started their practice in earnest.

Over the last two years the Trojans Exy team parties had been gaining fame among the rest of the student body. Not that this was a problem in the slightest, the beach stretch they tended for was plenty large and while the team may be technically the ‘hosts’ nobody looked to them to manage the event. People came and went and the team members were able to exist at the heart of it for as long as they liked, or remove themselves back to the designated exy dorms.

It suited Jeremy just fine, it was just the kind of energy he had come to love, to thrive in.

Laila’s perfected cake recipe and Alvarez’s increasingly ridiculous birthday gifts were the cornerstones that held the whole day together perfectly for him.

Jean- Jean was a wildcard going into Jeremy final year, he was still all sharp edges, raw and violent and so very very angry in October, everything still too new and strange and hard to comprehend let alone accept for him. but that wasn’t going to stop the team, wasn’t going to stop Alvarez from ‘taking care of her boy’ as she had termed it on that first birthday together years before. 

It just meant that a few concessions had to be made.

Jeremy was already more stressed out and tired than he normally was so early in the year, still feeling around the edges of what having Jean with them meant trying not to cut himself on all the potential problems.

When Al found him slumped over his desk after classes, head in his hands and seldom-used glasses pushed up into his hair she knew the normal party just wasn’t going to cut it this year. The team would understand, and nothing was stopping them from going out to the beach they just might be minus 1 birthday boy. Jeremy just needed his partners in crime tonight.

Jeremy made no sign of recognition at Alvarez’s entrance into his room but after a pause he asked quietly “When do we need to leave fr the beach? What are we going to do about Jean? - shit where even is he? Sara, what am i going to do?” 

He didn’t need to clarify that he was talking in a the longer run, asking about what he should do as captain, as potential, hopeful friend to Jean, if the other man continued to fight them they way he was. It wasn’t what he needed to be worrying over on the evening of his 23rd birthday. But here he was, ever the studious caring captain. Perhaps to a fault Sara worried sometimes. 

“We have sugar in our room, and a very big cake that I’m not letting anyone else have some of till you’ve made yourself sick of cake from it.”

His head came up slow, “..sugar? sugar sounds good.”

Jeremy followed her down the two doors to her and Laila’s room without another word, he knew he must be a sorry sight but it was nothing she hadn’t seen before. He wasn’t sure what to make of the fact that when he stepped past her into the little sitting room area he was confronted by the scene of Jean Moreau sitting cross-legged on the floor with a sketch book out on their coffee table and Laila quietly talking to him about something or other. Neither of them looked up until he reached the back of the sofa but when they did Laila beamed at him leaping to her feet on the sofa cushions and leaning over it to wrap him in a hug so she could wish him a happy birthday. Jean watched the exchange indifferently before meeting Jeremy’s eyes over Laila’s shoulder and inclining his head in the smallest nod. Jeremy was quite frankly stunned.

“Is it time for cake!?” Laila asked excitedly, “we worked really hard on the decorations thing year! Jean even helped!”

Talking about being stunned, Jeremy wasn’t sure he could have possibly hard that right, but Laila was smiling at Jean encouragingly and Al was grinning from where she stood by the kitchenette.

“We thought since the beach party probably isn’t really Jeans scene just yet and you’re practically dead on your feet today we could just skip the big team affair and gorge ourselves on my beautiful girlfriends cake and chill out, sound okay Jere?”

It was like his first year all over again, like Sara had read his mind without even seeing him all day and was doing everything he didn’t know he needed to make it through the day. realising his voice would probably crack if he tried to speak just then Jeremy nodded numbly, managing to smile at Al before moving around the sofa and slumping heavily onto it. 

Laila dropped back down next to him giving him another tight squeeze then turning back to Jean. Jeremy tried to follow their conversation, something about art theory or history or someone who did something revolutionary, he really wasn’t following it well at all. What he was doing was watching Jean nod along and answer softly or gesture slightly as he made a comment and every so often the slightest of smiles would grace his face and he would look down at his work or glance up and meet Laila’s eyes. It was the most amazing thing Jeremy thought he had seen all year. 

When Al broke the quite by emerging around the breakfast island singing a much calmer rendition of Cumpleaños Feliz then normal and placed a tray down in the space on the coffee table Jeremy was bowled over yet again by the cake upon it. it was the same clip art sun shape as it had been for the last three years but instead of Laila’s usual delicate swirls and paisley icing patterns the center of the cake was adorned with a cluster of neatly iced sunflowers each one looking almost 3D with their detail and layering. Jeremy breath caught as he took it in, his eyes lifting to Laila’s face, the awe clear in his expression but she simply ginned and nodded to Jean in explanation. 

Jeremy’s eyes widened and switched to focusing on Jean, his mouth falling open a little unable to form a response to this information. The other man met his gaze steadily for a moment before fixing on the cake between them. 

“I just noticed how much you like them. That bunch on your desk- from your family,” 

“Jean” Jeremy breathed “its amazing, thank you.”

It wasn’t like everything suddenly stopped being hard work, Jean was still a challenge on court and a minefield of sharp edges off, but as unexpected gifts go seeing the first real signs of progress from Jean was a hell of a good one, and far better than Jeremy could have asked for.


End file.
